Daylife/AP Photo by Robert F. Bukaty
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The U.S. navy has signed a contract worth some 14 billion U.S. dollars with General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman to build eight new Virginia-class submarines.
In a statement, General Dynamics said its Electric Boat unit and Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding, a unit of Northrop Grumman, will start building the submarines next year.
These submarines are capable of speeds in excess of 25 knots (46 km per hour) and can dive to a minimum depth of 244 meters, while carrying Mark 48 advanced capability torpedoes, Tomahawk land attack missiles and unmanned underwater vehicles.
Cities all over America have to cut back on everything from education budgets to support for their police departments – but, part of Bush’s farewell to the American taxpayer is guaranteeing that we can fight World War 3 from a position of hardware absurdity supremacy.
Spend, spend, spend! Funny how quick they came up with the war on terror, once the cold war was over. Good thing we didn’t downsize the military. How could we defend ourselves without more nuclear subs? We’ve only got 20 ballistic missle subs and 50 attack subs. I’m sure our terrorist enemies have far superior forces. We cannot allow a nuclear submarine gap. Why Bin Laden could have taken over the lost city of atlantis and that’s why he’s so hard to find.
FTN
Cool. Will it have a caterpillar?
Wrong. You are thinking of surface ships. Modern subs are really only vulnerable to other subs. A sub can stealthily travel the worlds seas and launch a cruise missile at any country without anyone knowing it location. They can deliver conventional or nuclear cruise missiles, ballistic strategic nuclear weapons or special forces troops anywhere in the world. They also carry out covert surveillance and have been used countless times in modern history.
#31 Not to mention all the civilian goods that are transported by sea. The Germans knew this in WW II and basically controlled the commercial shipping lanes with their U-Boats. A bulk of overseas shipping is still done on the worlds oceans.
#34 “Cool. Will it have a caterpillar?”
What caterpillar? It is simply a magma disruption.
These subs are needed. Several will be deployed off Dubi to protect Cheney on his island
Without these subs, we’d have no defense against Al-Quaeda’s vast submarine navy.
There’d be nothing to stop them launching an all-out naval attack from their bases in land-locked Afghanistan.
#39 HaHaHa, I guess you forgot about the resurgence of Russia, China’s growing power in the world, rouge nations like Iran and North Korea obtaining surplus subs from Russia. The submarine will never be obsolete as long as there is conflict in the world.
heehee, sometimes I think your true knowledge of world events could be written on the back of a child’s thumb nail. That or you are troll who just wants to hack people off. It’s hard to believe anyone is really this shallow.
If drug dealers can build subs to smuggle in weed I’d think Iran could afford a few. Put a nuke in it to rather than weed and use a cargo ship to move it to just outside our coastal waters and let it make the rest of the trip on its own.
A few days later a couple of martyrs for Allah and a lot of dead heathens.
San Fransico would be my target of choice based on what they say they believe. There are more real Heathens there. I can recall Iran’s leaders saying very clearly that there are no known gays in Iran.
Russia was getting very rich on oil money. China may end up owning the U.S.
India is turning into a super power. They have a lot of very poor people but their tech base and gross national product is going up.
We need submarines because they are the best defence against muslims wearing caftans, sandals and holding an RPG.
Pure logic here.
#42 you are an idiot.
#40 – quaglia
>>I guess you forgot about …rouge nations
*gasp!* ROUGE NATIONS? What are you saying? They’re homo-secks-ual??
If submarines were shaped like vaginas rather than penises, I can guarantee you the Navy wouldn’t want so many. Its a guy thing.